1 FEARED DEAD IN FUEL TANK BLAST

Andrew Fegelman and Rob KarwathCHICAGO TRIBUNE

One man was believed killed and two others were seriously injured Monday in an explosion that ripped the roof off a huge fuel storage tank near south suburban Alsip, setting fire to about 5,000 gallons of diesel fuel inside.

The accident was the second explosion and fire in less than a year at the site, a tank farm owned by Martin Oil Marketing Ltd. of Alsip.

A similar mishap last December at a tank about 100 feet away killed two men and left a third with burns over more than half of his body.

Martin President Carl Greer said Monday`s explosion occurred while workers were installing an alarm on the tank to prevent another accident such as the one Dec. 23, when a 900,000-gallon tank exploded as workers pumped it full of gasoline.

Officials of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)

said Monday that they fined Martin Oil about $1,000 for the December accident and ordered the company to install overflow alarms on the tanks at the storage facility, in unincorporated Worth Township near 127th Street and Kedzie Avenue.

Officials from OSHA and the Illinois State Fire Marshal`s office were investigating Monday`s accident.

Acting Alsip Fire Chief Ronald Fraider said there was little doubt, however, that it was caused by intense heat from welding equipment that the three men were operating on the roof of the tank.

''It takes a great amount of heat to get diesel fuel going,'' Fraider said.

The 500,000-gallon tank was only about 10 percent full, Fraider said, but that made it especially dangerous. The extra room in the tank made it easy for fumes to build up and rise to the roof, where the heat from the welding equipment ignited them.

By late Monday, fire officials and Cook County sheriff`s police had not found the body of the missing worker, whom Fraider identified as Joe Adamic of Plainfield. Workers planned to drain the tank and climb inside to search with floodlights for Adamic`s body, Fraider said.

Sheriff`s police found Adamic`s wallet near the tank, Fraider said, but searched unsuccessfully for his body with dogs. Suspecting that Adamic was thrown off the tank by the powerful explosion, police searched the rooftops of homes and businesses in the area, as well as the roofs of other tanks at the Martin facility.

They also looked unsuccessfully for Adamic`s body under the roof of the tank, which lay on the ground a few feet from the vessel. Martin workers used a crane to lift the bent roof, which appeared as if it had been cut off the tank with a huge can opener.

The two injured men were identified as Ren Bennett and Edward Jesonowski, both 27 and from Plainfield.

Bennett was in critical condition in the burn unit of the University of Chicago`s Bernard Mitchell Hospital, suffering from burns over 76 percent of his body, said John Easton, hospital spokesman.

Jesonowski was in fair condition at St. Francis Hospital in Blue Island, said Chuck Green, hospital spokesman. Jesonowski suffered arm and back injuries when he fell from the top of the tank, Green said.

Fraider said Jesonowski escaped the flames apparently because he was standing on a ladder leaning against the tank. He apparently was thrown away from the tank when it exploded, Fraider said.

Minutes after the explosion, Martin workers and fire officials found Jesonowski in a pickup truck near the entrance to the tank farm, Fraider said. Jesonowski told authorities that he was dazed by the explosion and did not remember driving the truck away after climbing in.

Firefighters from 11 south suburban fire departments and the nearby Clark Oil and Refining Co. refinery took about 90 minutes to extinguish the fire using fire-retardant foam, Fraider said. Two firefighters were treated at St. Francis for heat exposure, but they were released later, Green said.

Owners of businesses near the Martin tank farm said the two accidents there in less than a year made them question safety there.

''I think they had better look at their safety precautions,'' said Valdemar Schwarz, business manager at Witte Chevrolet, a dealership about a quarter-mile north of the tank farm. ''The third time there could be a hell of a bad accident.''

Harold Post, owner of B & W Disposal, a company within a few hundred feet of the site, said, ''I wonder what could happen the third time. You get a little paranoid. You worry when you have your business here, your computers, all of your equipment.''

Referring to Martin, Fraider said, ''With this one and the last one, OSHA is going to take a hard look at their practices.''